Energy Tomorrow Blog

Blog Archives

About This Blog

Energy Tomorrow is brought to you by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America's oil and natural gas industry. Our more than 500 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.

Lest there be any confusion about where the country stands on developing more domestic energy, Americans are casting pro-development votes each time they pull into a gasoline station to fill up and with every mile they travel. On the continued reliable availability of affordable fuel, Americans are putting on quite a display of solidarity.

To a large degree, cleaner air in the United States results from innovations and improvements in transportation fuels over the past four decades. This is important, because the freedom to travel has been ingrained in the American psyche since the days when waves of westward migration began spanning the continent.

The oil and natural gas industry is meeting the challenge of fueling America’s transportation needs while advancing air quality goals that benefit all Americans – by investing in cleaner, safer fuels and next-generation technologies for the future.

Indy Star: Kalese Hoggard is spending part of her spring break back in the classroom, but she's not learning from books. She's working with a team of students to build rockets and robots at Walker Career Center.
It's fun, she said, but there's a more important reason: "Women engineers — we need more of them. And I'm going to be one. Or a neurologist," she said.
Kalese is among 20 eighth-grade girls from Stonybrook, Raymond Park and Creston middle schools in Warren Township who are participating in Gateway Academy STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Camp.

Bloomberg: Drivers paid an average of $2.2021 a gallon for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps last week, the lowest level for this time of year since 2009, according to Lundberg Survey Inc.
Prices dropped 26.92 cents in the three-week period to Jan. 9 and are $1.14 a gallon below year-ago levels, according to the survey, which is based on information obtained at about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, California-based company.

Authored by Jean-Philippe Brisson, a carbon markets expert with the Latham and Watkins law firm in New York, the report commissioned by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) cautions that design flaws “can result – and have resulted – in catastrophic implications for environmental markets around the globe.”

Almost half of 2014 is behind us, and yet EPA still hasn’t finalized the ethanol requirements for this year. This is not a recipe for predictability and reliability in the gasoline markets, and the administration’s inability to meet the congressionally-mandated deadline of November 30th is a clear example of how unworkable the RFS is.

Last month EPA implemented new gasoline regulations requiring the last microscopic bits of sulfur to be removed from fuel. The Tier 3 standard is likely to hit consumers and burden the economy while providing, at best, negligible benefit.

Writing for the Jefferson Policy Journal, Paul Driessen makes a number of important points about the potentially onerous effects of the new regulation. Driessen starts by underscoring how unnecessary the new standard is.

The Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc. (EPRINC) released a study last week highlighting the consequences of exceeding the blendwall:

“The current regulatory regime, if not reformed in some substantial manner, will likely spike gasoline prices in 2014, as federal mandates take the U.S. gasoline pool significantly above 10 percent ethanol by volume.”

The risk mentioned here isn’t coming as a surprise. We’ve described the potential consequences of the RFS and highlighted the real costs of the program here, here, and here. EPRINC’s study brings all of these problems into focus, underscoring the immediate consequences that could face consumers in 2014.

There is a classic xkcd cartoon where a one of the characters says they can’t come to bed because “Someone is wrong on the internet.” Though the options for who exactly that someone was are almost unlimited, statistically there is a good chance the character was referring to Bob Dinneen. Witness this tweet:

AP reports on the debate surrounding the Renewable Fuel Standard and E15 gasoline after a recent ruling by the Supreme Court. "The ever increasing ethanol mandate has become unsustainable, causing a looming crisis for gasoline consumers," API's Bob Greco said. "We're at the point where refiners are being pressured to put unsafe levels of ethanol in gasoline, which could damage vehicles, harm consumers and wreak havoc on our economy."

Houston is arguably the center of American energy. With the surge in domestic energy, the city’s business sector – and revenues – has grown over the last few years. The Chronicle highlights the “vibrant metropolitan area.”

Related Projects

Energy Tomorrow is a project of the American Petroleum Institute – the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry – speaking for the industry to the public, Congress and the Executive Branch, state governments and the media.